It’s that time of year again, when high school students across Campbell River prepare for the semester to end, only for the next semester to begin.
Exams have always been particularly stressful times for some students, as everything they have learned over the past four and a half months comes together in the form of a massive stack of papers.
To make things even harder, on the day of their exam, the students are all corralled into a room, which seems a lot smaller when a hundred menacing desks are forced into the tiny space in perfectly-aligned rows.
The teachers will attempt to give the students reassuring smiles as they shuffle to a desk. Then their three-hour time limit begins. This is a heavy time for some, because this exam could mean that they pass or fail.
High school students Gurleen Mann and Gaëlle Messmer claim that exams haven’t yet brought too much worry for them, but there are some things that need to happen, and quickly. Like at this point in the year, they believe that teachers should be finishing up all of the lessons in their courses and starting to do review work.
“I feel like some of my teachers are introducing even more new concepts now,” says Mann, “rather than letting us spend time studying for the exams.”
Despite this, some students state that they don’t generally start studying until the night before. As well, after a short survey, it is learned that a small sample of students at Carihi have an average of 6.6 out of 10 for their stress levels during exams, 10 being the worst.
Perhaps for some, exams are just another average day in the life of a high-schooler, but for others the month of January can be some of the most strenuous times.
